Posts for 2020 (page 60)

My parents and I sit in the front row
of the auditorium/church/movie theatre.
My mother’s clock radio is under her seat
in case they send her to a place where
she has to tell time                        
                                   Above the screen is a
tool bar with lessons/hymns/orders
scrolling like a stock ticker on Wall Street
or the leaderboard at the U.S. Open  
                                                                 I rise
from my seat and walk to the back
where the creature is fed and watered    
                                                                      I see
this place is a pod linked to other pods
same stock tickers, same leaderboards
                                                                      I see
the screen reach out with malevolent
hands             
            seize optic nerves
                                             freeze brains
People are free to change seats but none
are free to escape the screen’s embrace  

I return to my seat but keep my eyes to the
floor         
         like Anne Frank in a closet listening         
         to the rhythm of marching boots
         and the grind of tank treads

Homer’s Frosty Freeze was the only way
they knew to communicate.
It felt like something to order a slaw dog
and a shake. But when they talked
about geography all the missing pieces
told him she’d been to hell.
Corbin’s on the other side of London
and that was about it.  

Just a skinny girl
hair frizzy as milkweed dander
He watched her sometimes in gym,
running like legs cast in irons
Would she remember what she said about the sidewalk?
That it was made of gas and rainbows and lazy rain?
He thought it meant something.

So they became husband and wife,
and she’d say, You don’t need stitches for that.
We don’t gotta talk about it.  
And she told her mother on the porch
you know, when someone wants to die
to just get it over with. 

He wanted her opinion on a piece of paper
he found on a corkboard at the store
he brought it home and read it out loud.
It was about God and maybe grace,
about being in the lowlands too long.            
I don’t understand a word you are saying. 

But she’d put apples in boxes under the eaves,
beans in jars, berries in the freezer,
dug a hole and put potatoes down in it
and covered it with a carpet rug.

So he peeled turnips and smiled.
The town was a mirror of the lake.
The lake was a mirror of the trees.
The trees were a mirror of the days.
And it got dark so quickly, after all.

Do not rename a target.

Ask before overwriting.

The renaming has no safeguards

If the user has permission to rewrite names,

the command will perform the action without any questions.

the result can be quite drastic,

unless you truly know what you are doing.

rename can be terminal, where you press ENTER.

rename requires only a single key unanticipated error …

—
Found poem (erasure) from Linux Man Pages. Complete text at:

https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/rename.1.html

The ghost of spray paint haunts its walls
where the creek rocks bear the weight of years
under the low bridge
is a crossroads of two creeks meeting

The creek rocks bear the heavy weight of years
where the hill dreams in quiet murmur
this nexus point connection
the moss is green, and deep underfoot

Where the gurgle of a hillside stream sings
in this crossroads of creek water
the water is colder here
there’s something cavern like under the bridge

Its opening a tunnel between two creeks
under the low bridge
spelunking without a cave
there was the ghost of spray paint haunting its walls

Pouring rain kissed the earth before sunrise
and the crickets’ song celebrated each drop with jubilation.

Swamp’s edge
& grandfather’s chrome
Ray-O-Vac shines ahead
in the humid dark. Deep rippling
of bullfrogs. Smell of duckweed
& water moss. He aims
his three-pronged spear. Hindus say

Shiva’s flesh is whitened
by the pale fragments
of human ashes. That his trident
commands earth, sea
& air. My grandfather feared
the god of the Baptists, never heard
of Shiva, but in the sweltry west

Tennessee night, with his pouch
of Red Man, pint of Jack
& heavy iron spear,
perhaps he felt the power
of destroyer & restorer, maybe
the indwelling. The silver
beam of his flashlight dances

with river shimmer, making his skin
ripple & glow like lightning bolts
in a raincloud. I think of his
left hand, calloused & firm,
steering the motor from behind
& when he reaches the marshy

edge of the frog-filled
water he becomes as exuberant
as a smiling God-drunk saint. He pierces
the bullfrog’s pale yellow belly & rules the world
for an hour or two in the carpet-thick
moss, not yet knowing 
of the hard years to come.

Walking around
palms-up supplicant,
open-mouthed & vulnerabilities
spilling out
coating, like second skin.

They see
armor
say ‘she’s so strong’
‘look how she gleams’

This warrior, bearing weight
wants only shelter
someone to see through the shine
wants
only
surcease.

I expected it to be temporary,
For the feeling to slowly fade away,
However as time passes,
I strangely feel her getting closer,
Yet she’s still so far away,
So distant,
I find myself longing for that beautiful mind,
For that perfect and radiant personality,
I find that as time passes,
My love has never faltered,
I long for days past,
For futures never explored,
I long for her flaws,
Her comfort,
She may be gone,
She may have moved on,
But our memories together remained,
And my love for her remains unchanged

Lemon yellow folded
wings to dip and coast like a wave
paths of purposed flight.